A Nazi victim's plea opens old wounds

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The call by a "patient" of Josef Mengele for an end to Nazi hunting
has upset other survivors. By Martin Daly in New York and Larry
Schwartz in Melbourne.

AS JEWISH and world leaders gathered in Israel for the burial of
Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, one Holocaust survivor was preaching
an unexpected  and, for many, unwelcome  message of
forgiveness.

Eva Mozes Kor is a survivor of the Nazi death camps. She and her
sister Miriam were among 3000 twins selected for medical
experiments by Auschwitz "Angel of Death" Josef Mengele during
World War II. Now, she says: "I would invite Mengele to coffee. And
I would forgive him for what he did to me."

The sentiments make Mrs Kor, 71  who lost 117 members of
her family, including her parents and two sisters, in the Holocaust
 a lone voice among survivors who last week paid tribute to
Wiesenthal, the man who brought 1100 Nazi war criminals to justice.
Now living in the United States, Mrs Kor suspects Mengele may still
be alive, aged 94  despite DNA evidence identifying his
remains  and argues that the best way for his victims to end
their suffering is to forgive him.

The vengeance, or "justice", associated with Nazi hunting only
prolongs the pain of the victims, she says, "and the pain will
never leave until the victims say: 'I forgive you"'.

Mrs Kor's forgiveness and her view that not all Nazis were war
criminals, such as her friend, former Auschwitz camp doctor Hans
Muench, who was acquitted in 1947, has made her few, if any,
friends among the survivors.

"I can't forgive him," says Stephanie Heller, 81, who was
singled out for experiments, aged 19, with her twin sister in 1943.
"I just don't think about him in hatred because I don't want to
hate anyone."

She says that among the experiments she and her sister were
subjected to, Mengele planned to "mate" them "to find out if it
would result in bearing twins". Eva Slonim, who also lives in
Melbourne, was selected with her younger sister after Mengele
mistook them for twins.

"I don't hate anybody, but I can't forgive," she says.

She recently flew to Poland to attend the 60th anniversary of
the liberation of Auschwitz.

"(The camp) accompanies me wherever I go. The experiences are
vivid and with me I can't forgive or forget."

Mrs Slonim has been upset by Mrs Kor's comments.

"I'm very surprised I think something must have happened
to her in old age."

She talks of the emotional and physical pain.

"The memories are with me. I resolved to rebuild and perpetuate
the memories of those who were murdered. Men, women and children
who uttered with their last breath, 'Tell the world so this will
never happen again' How can you forgive a person who is the
essence of evil?"

Mengele: Auschwitz "Angel of Death"Photo:Reuters

Mrs Kor formalised her "ultimate act of healing" from the
horrors of the Holocaust at the 50th anniversary of the liberation
of Auschwitz, in 1995, when she signed an "amnesty" amid the ruins
of the gas chambers for those who had committed some of the
greatest crimes against humanity.

Her message says: "Forgive your worst enemy. It will heal your
soul and set you free. It is a miracle medicine The day I
forgave the Nazis, I forgave my parents because they did not save
me from a destiny in Auschwitz and I also forgave myself for hating
my parents."

Her decision to forgive healed the psychological hurt: "I
stopped being a victim."

Her argument now is with those who, she says, perpetuate the
belief that victims will be helped by punishing their tormentors.
"If victims got any relief from the hanging of Adolf Eichmann, it
probably lasted only a few minutes," she says.

Mrs Kor says forgiveness by survivors does not excuse the
perpetrators of mass murder. It is not designed to make the killers
feel better, but to relieve or eliminate her own pain. Other
victims can do the same, she says.

But she goes further: the ageing World War II war criminals
should be set free, she says  as were many of those who
brutalised and murdered during the apartheid era in South Africa
after they had faced their victims as part of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission and apologised for what they had
done.

Similarly, she says, Nazi war criminals should be encouraged to
come forward and apologise. She suspects they will never do this as
long as they are hunted by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

Wiesenthal, who lost 89 members of his family in the Holocaust
and repeatedly said that justice, not revenge, was his motive in
hunting war criminals, was once asked for forgiveness by a dying SS
soldier. Wiesenthal refused, and the soldier died that night.

"He should have forgiven him," says Mrs Kor. "I would have
forgiven him immediately. By not doing so, Wiesenthal diminished
his own humanity.

"Those who chase war criminals believe in an eye for an eye. I
do not care if that was God's idea or the idea of the people who
follow him. It is not the way to deal with the past."

But Efraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's
Jerusalem office, is appalled by Mrs Kor's suggestions.

"She's talking like a Catholic priest, not a Jewish Holocaust
survivor," he says. "That kind of attitude does no good for
society. It gives a path to freedom for mass murderers."

Dr Zuroff, who has lists of alleged war criminals in several
countries, including Australia, that he wants brought to trial,
says: "These people, these killers, in 99.99 per cent of the cases,
show no remorse for what they did. They have to pay a price for
that."

The concept of justice, Dr Zuroff says, is a cornerstone of a
humane society. And he disputes Mrs Kor's view that justice does
not help victims. "It certainly does," he says. "It helps bring
closure."

Auschwitz survivor Irene Hizmae, who was subjected to
experiments with her twin brother, does not agree with Mrs Kor
either. "Some crimes are so great that there can be no
forgiveness," says Ms Hizmae, who lives in New York. She thinks
there is a case for executing war criminals. She also rejects Mrs
Kor's assertion that forgiveness is the only way to make the
psychological pain go away. "I don't forgive and I am not in pain."
Punishment, she adds, can also bring closure.

'I want to tell you I forgive you for what you have done'

"YOU won't remember me but I was in Auschwitz concentration camp
where you were known as the Angel of Death. I was 10 years old.

"The Nazis murdered 117 members of my family, including my
parents and my two sisters while you and other Nazi doctors
subjected me and my twin sister, Miriam, to horrific medical
experiments.

"You extracted a lot of blood from me. I lost consciousness a
lot as you tried to determine how much blood a child could lose and
yet stay alive.

"You had me stripped naked while you measured every inch of my
body for eight hours a day, and you gave me injections which still
make me very ill.

"One day you looked at my chart in your laboratory when I was
very sick and said I would not live two weeks.

"You were waiting for me to die. Then, my sister, Miriam, was to
be rushed to your laboratory and killed with an injection to the
heart, and you would autopsy us both as part of your
experiment.

"We were among the 3000 or so twins selected, of which only
about 200 survived, many of them with illnesses that would kill
them, or leave them in pain and psychological torture for the rest
of their lives.

"Miriam died in 1993 from illness caused by experiments which
you did on her.

"The abuse of her at Auschwitz meant her kidneys did not grow
beyond those of a 10-year-old.

"But she got a few extra years of life because I gave her one of
my kidneys, which luckily matched. After all, we were 99.9 per cent
identical, which was one of the reasons you were interested in us
in the first place.

"I got married and had children and am living in Terre Haute,
Indiana, in the United States, where I run a small Holocaust
museum, which is the only one of 40 such museums in the world
dedicated to murdered children and to those brutalised by you at
Auschwitz.

"I would like to talk with you about what happened at Auschwitz.
Most of all, I want to tell you that I forgive you for what you
have done."

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has upset other survivors. By Martin Daly in New York and Larry
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